The present invention relates to wireless devices and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for reducing power consumption of mobile devices when connecting to the Internet or the like.
Mobile devices are increasingly called on to connect to computer networks such as the Internet, for example, using the IEEE 802.11 protocol. Such network connections permit Web browsing, e-mail communication, and voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephony, as well as other similar Internet services. Unfortunately, standard wireless network protocols are relatively energy-inefficient and thus use of such wireless connections significantly reduces the operating time of the device on a single battery charge. For example, some current state-of-the-art cellular phones without IEEE 802.11 interfaces provide a talk-time of seven to eight hours, while the corresponding device using the IEEE 802.11 interface for VoIP may have a talk time of only two to three hours.
What is needed is a method of improving the energy efficiency of wireless network communications that is broadly applied to current networks and protocols.